Bryan Cranston Biography

Bryan Cranston won three consecutive Emmy awards in 2008-10 for his portrayal of Walter White, a terminally ill chemistry teacher who turns to crime on the cable television series Breaking Bad. Bryan Cranston grew up in a family of actors in the San Fernando Valley of California and earned a two-year degree in police science from Los Angeles Valley College in 1976. He turned to acting a few years later, and spent nearly 20 years as a working TV and commercial actor, including a two-year stint on the soap opera Loving (1983-85). He finally hit it big as Hal, Frankie Muniz‘s hapless dad on Malcolm in the Middle. He played the role for seven seasons (2000-06) and his comedy chops brought three Emmy nominations (in 2002, 2003 and 2006). He popped up as Lucifer in the cable mini-series Fallen in 2007, and the following year he was cast as the lead in Breaking Bad, playing a mild-mannered chemistry teacher who goes off the rails after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. The role won Cranston three consecutive Emmys for lead actor in a drama, in 2008, 2009 and 2010 (his co-star, Aaron Paul, also won an Emmy in 2010). As if to make up for all those years of infrequent work, Cranston then made himself into a ubiquitous character actor in films: Since 2010 he’s appeared in at least a dozen films, including The Lincoln Lawyer (2011, starring Matthew McConaughey), Drive (2011, starring Ryan Gosling), Contagion (2011, directed by Steven Soderbergh), John Carter (2012), Rock of Ages (2012, opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones), Total Recall (2012, starring Colin Farrell) and Argo (2012, starring Ben Affleck).